The Truth About The State Of Our Union

[Guest guest]

A

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:18:18 -0800 (PST)

The Truth About The State Of Our Union (By Dennis Kucinich)

 

 

 

The Truth About The State Of Our Union

(By Dennis Kucinich: 2004 Presidential Candidate)

 

Source >

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-j-kucinich/the-truth-about-the-state_b_

14610.html

 

On Tuesday night President Bush will stand before the Congress and the

nation to deliver his annual State of the Union address. We are sure

to hear a rosy tale of an economy on the rebound, a blossoming

democracy in Iraq, a terror network on the run, and a Gulf Coast

region rebuilding better and stronger than ever

before. As is most often the case with this Administration,

the rhetoric does not match reality.

 

The facts are clear. Our economy is struggling and leaving tens of

millions of Americans behind. According to the non-partisan National

Journal, since President Bush first stood before Congress and the

nation in 2001, the median income in this country has decreased, the

jobless rate has jumped from 3.9% to 4.9% and the number of families

living in poverty has increased from 8.7% to 10.2%. Our trade deficit

has doubled. Inflation has gone up. Personal bankruptcies have gone up.

Consumer debt has gone up. College tuition has gone up. And, the price

of gas has gone up. All the while, this Administration has turned a

$128 billion federal budget surplus into a $319 billion deficit.

 

Today, almost 6 million more Americans do not have any health

insurance than when President Bush took office. In total, over 45.5

million Americans, or over 15% of our total population, have no health

care coverage at all.

 

During his 2003 address, President Bush told the nation that Saddam

Hussein " had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000

liters of anthrax " , " materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000

liters of botulinum toxin " , " as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and

VX nerve agent " and " upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering

chemical agents " .

 

Today, almost three years after the start of the President's war of

choice, we know Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, had no

connection to al-Qaeda and posed no threat to our nation. Yet, our

armed forces are bogged down in the middle of civil war that our

own generals say cannot be won by military force. Our presence in Iraq

is counterproductive and has cost the lives of over 2,200 US troops

and $250 billion.

 

President Bush has delivered four State of the Union addresses since

the attacks on our nation on 9/11. In four speeches, the President has

never once mentioned Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the terror

attacks on this nation. The status of the FBI's most wanted man

apparently is not important to the state of our union. Yet, in the

same four speeches, President Bush has mentioned Saddam Hussein 24

times, and Iraq 78 times.

 

President Bush used the opening of his 2003 State of the Union to

praise the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. This year

our nation, and the world, saw the result of the failure of this

massive reorganization of our government. As Katrina rolled ashore,

destroying large cities and small towns in four states, it was FEMA,

once an independent cabinet level agency--but now rolled into

Department of Homeland Security--that failed to react. The searing

image of thousands of Americans stranded without food and water dying

on American streets will be the lasting legacy of the Department of

Homeland Security, not a reorganized government " mobilizing against

the threats of a new era " as the President described in his speech.

 

In his 2004 and 2005 addresses, the President spent a considerable

amount of time advocating policies that would roll back much of the

social progress made since the New Deal. In 2004, the President touted

a Medicare prescription drug bill that will fatten the pockets of the

pharmaceutical industry, endangering the future finances of the entire

Medicare program, while leaving seniors confused and empty handed as

they try to fill their prescriptions under the new plan. In 2005, the

President used his address to promote his plan strip seniors of the

guaranteed promise of Social Security, and replace it with a risky

scheme to gamble their future in the stock market.

 

What the President has in store for his message this year is not known

yet. But, we do know the President Bush will speak in glowing terms

about the state of our union. The truth is the state of our union is

in great peril. This Administration is conducting a war with no end in

Iraq, illegally spying on Americans at home, overseeing an economy

that is increasingly leaving more and more Americans behind and

abandoning Gulf in their hour of great need.

 

If recent history is any precedent, then next week we should see more

of the same old dance around reality that has been the hallmark of

President Bush's annual address.

_________

 

" Polite conservationists leave no mark save the scars upon the Earth

that could have been prevented had they stood their ground. " -David

Ross Brower

 

 

 

Mark Hull-Richter, U.S. Citizen & Patriot

U.S.A. - From democracy to kakistocracy in one fell coup.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-01.htm

http://verifiedvoting.org http://blackboxvoting.org

 

_______________